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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22409269">a fool by profession</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/besselfcn/pseuds/besselfcn'>besselfcn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Jaskier tells his problems to a horse, M/M, Pining</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:09:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>967</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22409269</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/besselfcn/pseuds/besselfcn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“<i>Make sure my horse gets a bath</i>,” Jaskier mumbles, in a poor imitation of Geralt’s distressingly low register. “Who does he think he is, honestly? Man has one bloody popular song written after him and he thinks I’ll attend to his beck and call, is that it?”</p><p>He gives pause for Roach to weigh in, if she’s inclined. She snorts. </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>507</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a fool by profession</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I don't honestly know anything about the Witcher except what I've scrounged up after watching the TV show so if things are wrong, it is what it is.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jaskier heard a tale once of a people who had never known horses before, such that the first time they saw a man riding atop one they thought the two creatures one and the same; some fearsome six-legged, two-headed creature come riding along to rain down earthly terror and destruction.</p><p>Now, he thinks the story is rather apocryphal, and more than a bit derogatory. But seeing the way Geralt and Roach are attached rather firmly at the hip as Geralt-and-Roach, he thinks he can sympathize with where the misunderstanding arose. </p><p>This is one of the rare nights, though, wherein the monster they’re after is hidden somewhere among the city streets and not on the outskirts. Rumors of a shapechanger that moves through the midnight streets cutting down young men in their prime have drawn the citizens together to put some coin in Geralt’s pocket. And so Geralt has posted up in an inn, and Jaskier has followed him, as Jaskier does now without asking and Geralt accepts without an abundance of grumbling. Roach has the nicest room of the three of them; a stable out back with a door on it even, to keep her sheltered from the cold. </p><p>Geralt knocks back a few fingers of whiskey, which Jaskier thinks doesn’t even get him drunk anyhow so what’s the point, and grumbles, “I’ll be back. Make sure my horse gets a bath.” </p><p>Jaskier starts to stammer out a protest, but all he manages before Geralt’s out the door is an, “Of course, your highness!” which Geralt acknowledges with a wave. </p><p>So here he is. Mucking the stables and brushing the blood out of a beautiful chestnut mare while Geralt’s off playing at being someone with actual charm. </p><p>“<em>Make sure my horse gets a bath</em>,” Jaskier mumbles, in a poor imitation of Geralt’s distressingly low register. “Who does he think he is, honestly? Man has one bloody popular song written after him and he thinks I’ll attend to his beck and call, is that it?”</p><p>He gives pause for Roach to weigh in, if she’s inclined. She snorts. </p><p>“I know! It’s a wonder he hasn’t any friends, the way he carries on. You’d think people would be falling at his feet.”</p><p>Roach blinks. He pats her cheek.</p><p>“You’re the only one who can tolerate him, you poor thing,” he tells her, “and it’s because you can’t fucking understand him.”</p><p>He brushes out her side; she shies away where she’s got a particularly long scar across her haunch. It was deep once, but it’s healed up nicely with careful stitches and hefty applications of salve. Jaskier only vaguely remembers her getting it, slashed by what he recalls looking like an overgrown raccoon. He remembers more Geralt’s tightened expression, his determination and the gentleness in his voice when he tried to calm her out of a panic to look at the wound. </p><p>“Or maybe he just likes you better than he likes the rest of us,” Jaskier muses. “Bet you’ve heard all his dirty little secrets. Well, most of them.”</p><p>He remembers the first he learned that this Roach was not the only Roach that Geralt had ever known. He’d put it together maybe far too late; after all, Roach was just a horse, and Geralt was not just a man. </p><p>But Geralt had said something quietly to her that he’d thought Jaskier hadn’t heard, something about <em> I’ll be sorry to see this one go </em> and it had come crashing down upon Jaskier’s shoulders like an avalanche--the realization that Geralt had outlived a dozen horses and would outlive a dozen more and that would just be Geralt’s young adulthood, comparatively, that he would go on having a horse named Roach with a different coat every handful of years for decades, for centuries, until the sun burned out, and they’d all be the same and they’d all be different, and then one day he’d die and that Roach would be the last Roach and wouldn’t even know it. </p><p>Jaskier had retired to his tent early that evening and tried to write a song about it and ended up crying, curled up in his bedroll like a child, and then promised to himself in the morning never to think or speak of it again.</p><p>“Does he even tell <em> you </em> any of what he got up to before he picked you up, hmm?” he asks Roach, who has begun stamping her feet in approval at the feeling of a clean coat. “And if he does, you’d better tell me straight away, because that is <em> right </em> unfair.”</p><p>Jaskier tries to pry stories out of him. It doesn’t matter what of--monsters and women and Witchers and wonders. He tells him it’s for his next song; how will people <em> sympathize </em> with you, Geralt, if they don’t <em> know </em> you? I must have some <em> fodder</em>; they must <em> weep.</em> </p><p>But he knows that’s not the whole of it. He’s known for weeks or months or maybe years. And here, brushing out Roach’s mane, putting little plait-braids in it he knows Geralt will detest, he lets himself think it. </p><p>He wants to hear Geralt talk. He wants to hear Geralt talk <em> to him</em>. He wants to know him. He wants to know where he’s been. He wants to know what he’s seen. He wants to hear about the monsters he’s run through with a blade and the women he’s taken to bed. He wants to be those women. He wants to be those monsters. </p><p>“Do you think he ever would, Roach?” he breathes. “A fool by profession like me.”</p><p>He steps back. He admires his handiwork. He looks to Roach for her approval and, of course, she just snorts.</p><p>“By the gods, look what this man has done to me,” Jaskier sighs. “I’m talking to a fucking horse.”</p>
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